Coronavirus prep
Options
Replies
-
That is incredibly sad and very concerning. There's a lot going on here - where did this happen, and do you have a link to the article? I'd like to read it if you do.corinasue1143 wrote: »Some people are only counting people who have a positive test followed by 2 negative tests 2 weeks apart. In other words, no one has recovered yet. Others are saying anyone who goes home from the hospital is well. But of course, there are those that go home and die at home the next day.
One friend who is on her fifth week of fever between 101 and 103 still isn’t confirmed as having corona.
Another friend has pneumonia in all 5 lobes of his lungs can’t get treated. The first Dr. told him it started with corona and there is no good treatment for corona. His test for corona came back negative. First Dr. told him the tests are faulty, it was wrong. He has corona. He was still trying to get help and calling the third Dr. last I heard.
So it’s also not very accurate to count infected.
On the news last night, a man with leukemia went to his usual hospital with symptoms he had before and they treated before. The hospital was full so they redirected him to another hospital, where they promptly sent him straight to the corona ward. He got worse and worse and was found dead the next morning, untreated for leukemia. Was he counted as a Corona death? He died in the corona ward. (Just an interesting aside, the hospital didn’t notify the family he died. The family is still trying to get info from the hospital, but they won’t talk to the family.)cwolfman13 wrote: »Snowflake and others, who live in other countries:
With new laws and requirements from your governments, how are your people feeling about it? Do they easily comply or balk at being forced to do certain things they don't want to do?
Here in America, it saddens and scares me to see thousands of protesters congregate over it all being unconstitutional. Not many people are using masks or certainly not social distancing during these protests.
How many will needlessly suffer the ramifications of these large groups?
Businesses do need to start easing into it again so people can live and the economy can rebound a bit before it completely tanks. But with so many denying to do what's right and responsible, it's terribly scary to think about. Even such a simple thing as wearing a mask and people are already saying they'll refuse because it doesn't do any good anyways.
Just curious.......
This was one of the things I was worried about when they whole sale shuttered business. I was and still am somewhat skeptical as to whether or not that had to be done. I would have preferred other measures such as capacity limits and requiring some kind of mask or face covering to enter a business to have happened first. I'm sure it's very difficult for the guy who owns one of the local nurseries here to be shut down and not know when or if he'll ever operate again to see a parking lot full of cars at Lowes with people purchasing much of what he also sells.
At any rate, I would imagine if you polled the protesters, I would wager that many, if not most are now unemployed. When you have 20M+ people filing for unemployment and then also having difficulty getting that, you're going to start to see push back. At this point, for those people, it's not about sacrificing for the greater good...it's about self preservation. They don't know if they're going to make rent...they don't know if they will have enough money for food or to pay their utilities, etc. For these people, these concerns are now much more real and devastatingly personal than the virus. For these individuals, their economic viability is a far greater threat than the virus.
I am fortunate that my wife and I can still work and do so from home 95% of the time. The lack of social interaction is getting to us, as well as the inability to go anywhere or do anything...but that is a mild annoyance relative to wondering if we're going to foreclose on the house or if we'll be able to feed our kids, or if our utilities are going to get shut off for non payment, or how far we can stretch a buck.
You basically have two very different worlds colliding...those that can and continue to work and stay home for the greater good of the community, and those that can't work and don't know what they're going to do with self preservation as their primary concern at this point.
It is life threatening for some of them too. Out of work could mean they cannot afford medical care and prescriptions. People will die as a result. The greater good is a very complicated concept for this reason.
For me it always comes back to the original problem. The virus needed to be slowed so that healthcare could start to catch up. We can't actually save anyone's life. We can only take action to try and prevent premature death. In this case it likely that preventing some will also have a cost in human life.
This is why I always try to spot the moonwalking bear. In a complicated mess like the one we are in the virus can't be the only focal point.
Totally agree with this sentiment. People are going to die from the virus, thanks to actions taken to stop it, some won't die of the virus, but may die due to starvation as a result of the economic impact, what if some die due to means taken to... I don't know... heat their house(?) this winter because they can't afford normal means (again, because of economic impact), or (as in @corinasue1143's example) some may die BECAUSE of actions taken to try to save lives. What if research that had been going on to cure or help with one disease was stopped to focus efforts on coronavirus and people who would have survived if the research that was halted had continued will now die? We can't know all the ramifications of our reactions to the virus. So, we're darned if we do something and darned if we don't do something. History and Psychology and Sociology fields are going to have a field day for quite a while dissecting our actions/inactions and their ramifications. My undergrad is in Psychology, and I just started a graduate program in a totally different field - which I sort of regret now, because there are so many research opportunities wrapped up in COVID19 response, and I'd love to find time to research (sorry - morbid mind-wandering).
5 -
rheddmobile wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Texas is supposed to start cautiously resuming some economic activities Friday. My county, Denton, now has 18 deaths from covid-19. I have been watching the deaths and counting the days between doublings. The 16th death, which was the fourth doubling, was posted this recent Saturday, with a span of 8 days from the 3rd doubling. They've been posted mostly in singles all through this time. If that rate of death, 1 per day, simply persists it will stretch the 5th doubling to 16 days. The statistically important thing is the days-between-doublings. To see that number grow is to know that the rate of death is falling and to infer that the rate of infection had fallen two weeks ago. As the state begins to resume operating, I'll keep watching my county's numbers.
Are you also watching the rate of new infections? How many days between doubling of total infections?
Where I live, very few are dying, so that's not an interesting figure to watch. The number of recoveries per day compared to the number of new infections per day is my benchmark now.
The problem with using infections as a benchmark is that it’s entirely dependent on testing. It’s impossible to know whether infections are increasing because of increased testing, or falling because testing has stalled for some reason such as lack of swabs.
Yes I see your point. But I'm certainly happy to see the majority of confirmed infections here actually recovering instead of dying.2 -
rheddmobile wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Texas is supposed to start cautiously resuming some economic activities Friday. My county, Denton, now has 18 deaths from covid-19. I have been watching the deaths and counting the days between doublings. The 16th death, which was the fourth doubling, was posted this recent Saturday, with a span of 8 days from the 3rd doubling. They've been posted mostly in singles all through this time. If that rate of death, 1 per day, simply persists it will stretch the 5th doubling to 16 days. The statistically important thing is the days-between-doublings. To see that number grow is to know that the rate of death is falling and to infer that the rate of infection had fallen two weeks ago. As the state begins to resume operating, I'll keep watching my county's numbers.
Are you also watching the rate of new infections? How many days between doubling of total infections?
Where I live, very few are dying, so that's not an interesting figure to watch. The number of recoveries per day compared to the number of new infections per day is my benchmark now.
The problem with using infections as a benchmark is that it’s entirely dependent on testing. It’s impossible to know whether infections are increasing because of increased testing, or falling because testing has stalled for some reason such as lack of swabs.
Yes I see your point. But I'm certainly happy to see the majority of confirmed infections here actually recovering instead of dying.
Yes, same here. We haven't had a death in a good while, so that's not a useful metric. In our case, new infections is also not a useful metric right now because of policy changes. All drivers of trucks bringing import items are to be tested at borders and are counted toward the cases even if they were to deliver their shipment and immediately leave the country. They will also be gradually flying back tens of thousands of students who are studying abroad in the near future. These will be quarantined before they're released so although anyone who tests positive will count toward cases, they aren't really a meaningful risk.
I currently measure progress by the nature of new cases. They usually mention the number of cases daily then list the details such as if the case was imported, close contact of a known case, or unknown source of transmission. The fewer unknowns the better, in my opinion.
With lockdown being rolled back slowly, they have been increasing testing, and plan to keep increasing it the more things open up, so we might see larger numbers in the future. Our curve will not look like the typical bell curve because of all of the above.2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Texas is supposed to start cautiously resuming some economic activities Friday. My county, Denton, now has 18 deaths from covid-19. I have been watching the deaths and counting the days between doublings. The 16th death, which was the fourth doubling, was posted this recent Saturday, with a span of 8 days from the 3rd doubling. They've been posted mostly in singles all through this time. If that rate of death, 1 per day, simply persists it will stretch the 5th doubling to 16 days. The statistically important thing is the days-between-doublings. To see that number grow is to know that the rate of death is falling and to infer that the rate of infection had fallen two weeks ago. As the state begins to resume operating, I'll keep watching my county's numbers.
Are you also watching the rate of new infections? How many days between doubling of total infections?
Where I live, very few are dying, so that's not an interesting figure to watch. The number of recoveries per day compared to the number of new infections per day is my benchmark now.
The problem with using infections as a benchmark is that it’s entirely dependent on testing. It’s impossible to know whether infections are increasing because of increased testing, or falling because testing has stalled for some reason such as lack of swabs.
Yes I see your point. But I'm certainly happy to see the majority of confirmed infections here actually recovering instead of dying.
Yes, same here. We haven't had a death in a good while, so that's not a useful metric. In our case, new infections is also not a useful metric right now because of policy changes. All drivers of trucks bringing import items are to be tested at borders and are counted toward the cases even if they were to deliver their shipment and immediately leave the country. They will also be gradually flying back tens of thousands of students who are studying abroad in the near future. These will be quarantined before they're released so although anyone who tests positive will count toward cases, they aren't really a meaningful risk.
I currently measure progress by the nature of new cases. They usually mention the number of cases daily then list the details such as if the case was imported, close contact of a known case, or unknown source of transmission. The fewer unknowns the better, in my opinion.
With lockdown being rolled back slowly, they have been increasing testing, and plan to keep increasing it the more things open up, so we might see larger numbers in the future. Our curve will not look like the typical bell curve because of all of the above.
Our lovely bell curve may not continue to look like that as things increasingly open up, either. Though if the numbers are going up once we're in Level 2, we'll presumably go back into alert Level 3, depending on where those cases are coming from. We'll continue to have cases coming in from overseas in small numbers (returning NZers, who go into mandatory quarantine if they are symptomatic, or managed self-isolation if they are not).2 -
In Los Angeles County our numbers are going up (16,435 cases, 729 deaths) as our testing numbers are going up. At least more are being tested. We'll have to see day by day if the May 15 end of the stay in place will still be that date.5
-
It is life threatening for some of them too. Out of work could mean they cannot afford medical care and prescriptions. People will die as a result. The greater good is a very complicated concept for this reason.cwolfman13 wrote: »Snowflake and others, who live in other countries:
With new laws and requirements from your governments, how are your people feeling about it? Do they easily comply or balk at being forced to do certain things they don't want to do?
Here in America, it saddens and scares me to see thousands of protesters congregate over it all being unconstitutional. Not many people are using masks or certainly not social distancing during these protests. How many will needlessly suffer the ramifications of these large groups?
Businesses do need to start easing into it again so people can live and the economy can rebound a bit before it completely tanks. But with so many denying to do what's right and responsible, it's terribly scary to think about. Even such a simple thing as wearing a mask and people are already saying they'll refuse because it doesn't do any good anyways.
Just curious.......
This was one of the things I was worried about when they whole sale shuttered business. I was and still am somewhat skeptical as to whether or not that had to be done. I would have preferred other measures such as capacity limits and requiring some kind of mask or face covering to enter a business to have happened first. I'm sure it's very difficult for the guy who owns one of the local nurseries here to be shut down and not know when or if he'll ever operate again to see a parking lot full of cars at Lowes with people purchasing much of what he also sells.
At any rate, I would imagine if you polled the protesters, I would wager that many, if not most are now unemployed. When you have 20M+ people filing for unemployment and then also having difficulty getting that, you're going to start to see push back. At this point, for those people, it's not about sacrificing for the greater good...it's about self preservation. They don't know if they're going to make rent...they don't know if they will have enough money for food or to pay their utilities, etc. For these people, these concerns are now much more real and devastatingly personal than the virus. For these individuals, their economic viability is a far greater threat than the virus.
I am fortunate that my wife and I can still work and do so from home 95% of the time. The lack of social interaction is getting to us, as well as the inability to go anywhere or do anything...but that is a mild annoyance relative to wondering if we're going to foreclose on the house or if we'll be able to feed our kids, or if our utilities are going to get shut off for non payment, or how far we can stretch a buck.
You basically have two very different worlds colliding...those that can and continue to work and stay home for the greater good of the community, and those that can't work and don't know what they're going to do with self preservation as their primary concern at this point.
For me it always comes back to the original problem. The virus needed to be slowed so that healthcare could start to catch up. We can't actually save anyone's life. We can only take action to try and prevent premature death. In this case it likely that preventing some will also have a cost in human life.
This is why I always try to spot the moonwalking bear. In a complicated mess like the one we are in the virus can't be the only focal point.cwolfman13 wrote: »Snowflake and others, who live in other countries:
With new laws and requirements from your governments, how are your people feeling about it? Do they easily comply or balk at being forced to do certain things they don't want to do?
Here in America, it saddens and scares me to see thousands of protesters congregate over it all being unconstitutional. Not many people are using masks or certainly not social distancing during these protests. How many will needlessly suffer the ramifications of these large groups?
Businesses do need to start easing into it again so people can live and the economy can rebound a bit before it completely tanks. But with so many denying to do what's right and responsible, it's terribly scary to think about. Even such a simple thing as wearing a mask and people are already saying they'll refuse because it doesn't do any good anyways.
Just curious.......
This was one of the things I was worried about when they whole sale shuttered business. I was and still am somewhat skeptical as to whether or not that had to be done. I would have preferred other measures such as capacity limits and requiring some kind of mask or face covering to enter a business to have happened first. I'm sure it's very difficult for the guy who owns one of the local nurseries here to be shut down and not know when or if he'll ever operate again to see a parking lot full of cars at Lowes with people purchasing much of what he also sells.
At any rate, I would imagine if you polled the protesters, I would wager that many, if not most are now unemployed. When you have 20M+ people filing for unemployment and then also having difficulty getting that, you're going to start to see push back. At this point, for those people, it's not about sacrificing for the greater good...it's about self preservation. They don't know if they're going to make rent...they don't know if they will have enough money for food or to pay their utilities, etc. For these people, these concerns are now much more real and devastatingly personal than the virus. For these individuals, their economic viability is a far greater threat than the virus.
I am fortunate that my wife and I can still work and do so from home 95% of the time. The lack of social interaction is getting to us, as well as the inability to go anywhere or do anything...but that is a mild annoyance relative to wondering if we're going to foreclose on the house or if we'll be able to feed our kids, or if our utilities are going to get shut off for non payment, or how far we can stretch a buck.
You basically have two very different worlds colliding...those that can and continue to work and stay home for the greater good of the community, and those that can't work and don't know what they're going to do with self preservation as their primary concern at this point.
It is life threatening for some of them too. Out of work could mean they cannot afford medical care and prescriptions. People will die as a result. The greater good is a very complicated concept for this reason.
For me it always comes back to the original problem. The virus needed to be slowed so that healthcare could start to catch up. We can't actually save anyone's life. We can only take action to try and prevent premature death. In this case it likely that preventing some will also have a cost in human life.
This is why I always try to spot the moonwalking bear. In a complicated mess like the one we are in the virus can't be the only focal point.
I agree, and that is, to a large extent what I was trying to convey. Also, emphasis with the virus tends to be about mortality when in reality, the measures being taken are more to slow the spread and not overwhelm the healthcare system than they are about mortality. The flue for example kills a lot of people...but it spreads over the course of an entire season so it doesn't overwhelm hospitals like this has done in a matter of months worldwide.
There isn't an easy answer...open things up too soon and you could get a huge rebound...we might get that anyway in the fall, but hopefully the HC system will have had time to ramp up for it. It's really a double edged sword no matter how you swing it. A healthy economy also needs healthy workers, and if there is a massive surge then that will be a blow as well. Another problem here in NM is that our HC system is ill equipped to handle any of this...it's pretty small and we have a lot of retired elderly here as well as a large population of at risk that require more hospitalization...in general, we are not a very physically healthy state...huge obesity problem that is greater than the national average, particularly with children. Our main hospitals are in the ABQ metro area, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces...almost half of the population needs to be taken from rural areas to one of these hospitals if there is a life threatening emergency...often by air lift. As it is, our largest growing infection areas are the numerous reservations in the state...their numbers are exploding. They don't have hospitals and all have to be moved in some manner to the greater metro areas of the state for medical treatment which is extremely taxing on our system.
It looks like we're doing phase I re-open May 15 if current trends continue in NM. This will mean more businesses will be allowed to open but still be restricted in regards to capacity and it sounds like masks are likely to be mandatory as part of the re-open. As of today, nurseries have been allowed to re-open for curbside pickup. My wife's company has been petitioning the governor to be allowed to re-open as they aren't consumer driven and don't have physical interaction with the public in any way, and they are small with less than 10 employees in this particular office...so far nothing, but it's likely they will be allowed to open on May 15.5 -
yes that is why I am confident we do have it under control in South Australia - and most other australian states.
Because very low number of new cases is not a reflection of less testing - in fact the opposite - as of a week ago, anyone with any flu like symptoms, no matter how mild, can be tested.
Of course there is the possibility of infected people not getting tested - but given high numbers of tests being done and very low numbers of community transmission, that would seem unlikely.
There is also possibility of false negatives - but I guess one has to have some trust in the system - and again very low numbers of community transmission would suggest it is extremely unlikely people are falsely testing negative - because if that were so, they would falsely be getting all clear to go to work etc - and we would see more flow on cases with no known contact cause.
Social restrictions remain in place - but not as tight as some places, including eastern states of Australia.
All incoming people , with very few exceptions, whether from overseas or interstate, must self quarnatine for 14 days.4 -
In Los Angeles County our numbers are going up (16,435 cases, 729 deaths) as our testing numbers are going up. At least more are being tested. We'll have to see day by day if the May 15 end of the stay in place will still be that date.
Yeah, same here. The numbers were staying steady, but they have been trying to increase testing (eliminated the requirement of a dr referral and also and added a bunch more sites in apparently more affected areas (South and West sides of Chicago and East St. Louis)), and the numbers jumped again. It feels really discouraging although I know increased testing is the key to being able to open up more quickly.
2049 more known cases today, and 98 more deaths. Totals (for IL) of 35,108 cases, and 1,565 deaths.
Chicago is at 14,394 and 604, with Cook County as a whole at 24,546 and 1072.
I find the differences between the numbers in various places (for example, NY and CA), even places following basically the same policies for the same amount of time intriguing, although no idea what the answers are.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »There isn't an easy answer...open things up too soon and you could get a huge rebound...we might get that anyway in the fall, but hopefully the HC system will have had time to ramp up for it. It's really a double edged sword no matter how you swing it. A healthy economy also needs healthy workers, and if there is a massive surge then that will be a blow as well.
This is one of the things that I think is being missed, at least with respect to places with significant outbreaks (which could well be everywhere absent the measures). People keep suggesting that the choice is between economic hardship and taking the precautions we are, but the evidence is that the economic hardship would have occurred anyway, due to (1) personal choices (here people weren't going to restaurants or many other activities they normally do and conventions were cancelled before the shut down, and even things like SXSW had been cancelled across the country); and (2) more rampant illness by employees interfering with business and causing personal hardships. And the stock market was certainly tanking already.
I don't know what to do, but the idea that it's all choices by state or local gov'ts killing the economy (not saying you were saying this) seems absurd to me. (And if you look at actual numbers from places that have shut down less or right before the shut downs, that also indicates that that particular narrative is false.)5 -
JustSomeEm wrote: »
That is incredibly sad and very concerning. There's a lot going on here - where did this happen, and do you have a link to the article? I'd like to read it if you do.corinasue1143 wrote: »Some people are only counting people who have a positive test followed by 2 negative tests 2 weeks apart. In other words, no one has recovered yet.
On the news last night, a man with leukemia went to his usual hospital with symptoms he had before and they treated before. The hospital was full so they redirected him to another hospital, where they promptly sent him straight to the corona ward. He got worse and worse and was found dead the next morning, untreated for leukemia. Was he counted as a Corona death? He died in the corona ward. (Just an interesting aside, the hospital didn’t notify the family he died. The family is still trying to get info from the hospital, but they won’t talk to the family.)
Oops! Non-hodgens, not leukemia.
Sorry, I don’t know how to post links, but maybe you can google it from this.
1 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »There isn't an easy answer...open things up too soon and you could get a huge rebound...we might get that anyway in the fall, but hopefully the HC system will have had time to ramp up for it. It's really a double edged sword no matter how you swing it. A healthy economy also needs healthy workers, and if there is a massive surge then that will be a blow as well.
This is one of the things that I think is being missed, at least with respect to places with significant outbreaks (which could well be everywhere absent the measures). People keep suggesting that the choice is between economic hardship and taking the precautions we are, but the evidence is that the economic hardship would have occurred anyway, due to (1) personal choices (here people weren't going to restaurants or many other activities they normally do and conventions were cancelled before the shut down, and even things like SXSW had been cancelled across the country); and (2) more rampant illness by employees interfering with business and causing personal hardships. And the stock market was certainly tanking already.
I don't know what to do, but the idea that it's all choices by state or local gov'ts killing the economy (not saying you were saying this) seems absurd to me. (And if you look at actual numbers from places that have shut down less or right before the shut downs, that also indicates that that particular narrative is false.)
I think the bolded is a really good point, and it seems like it's under-appreciated by many protesting the lockdowns.
From the standpoint of preserving an overall economic system, or for that matter even individual complex-structure industries or individual businesses, a well-defined, well-understood, planned set of restrictions is IMO likely to have fewer negative consequences, and more controllable consequences, compared to a series of near-random chaotic disease outbreaks and resulting shutdowns.
It seems like there's a small case study available by looking at the consequences of the meat-packing plant coronavirus outbreak in SD, and how that's affected the company, supply chains, and the surrounding community. It's chaos. The economic impacts are awful enough at the small scale, but if one considers how it would look if that sort of thing played out widely . . . yikes.
Speaking as someone with some limited management background, I'd strongly prefer to be faced with a defined shutdown, with some government programs tailored (even suboptimally) to moderate expected impacts . . . versus "let's see who gets sick and figure out how we can work things out around that on the spur of the moment, while some of them are in the ICU and unable to contribute their effort or expertise to the response". The latter just seems insane: Like setting off random tornadoes all over the whole freakin' country, at hundreds or thousands of unplanned locations, then trying to figure out how to recover.9 -
paperpudding wrote: »yes that is why I am confident we do have it under control in South Australia - and most other australian states.
Because very low number of new cases is not a reflection of less testing - in fact the opposite - as of a week ago, anyone with any flu like symptoms, no matter how mild, can be tested.
Of course there is the possibility of infected people not getting tested - but given high numbers of tests being done and very low numbers of community transmission, that would seem unlikely.
There is also possibility of false negatives - but I guess one has to have some trust in the system - and again very low numbers of community transmission would suggest it is extremely unlikely people are falsely testing negative - because if that were so, they would falsely be getting all clear to go to work etc - and we would see more flow on cases with no known contact cause.
Social restrictions remain in place - but not as tight as some places, including eastern states of Australia.
All incoming people , with very few exceptions, whether from overseas or interstate, must self quarnatine for 14 days.
Yep, same for NZ - so much as a sniffle and you can get tested, and that will continue as restrictions lift. People are being encouraged to contact their GP or Healthline as soon as they feel unwell, because maintaining control requires identifying and isolating any new cases plus close contacts as quickly as possible.
We had a bit of a dip in numbers being tested (Australia did too), simply because there are fewer respiratory illnesses circulating due to the restrictions in place. We haven't actually had any days where full testing capacity was reached (day before yesterday was the highest, with 5289 tests processed, only 6 came back positive).
Here, we have a category of 'probable', for where a test result has come back negative, but all clinical signs point to COVID-19. So of our 1451 total, 338 are probable cases.7 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »yes that is why I am confident we do have it under control in South Australia - and most other australian states.
Because very low number of new cases is not a reflection of less testing - in fact the opposite - as of a week ago, anyone with any flu like symptoms, no matter how mild, can be tested.
Of course there is the possibility of infected people not getting tested - but given high numbers of tests being done and very low numbers of community transmission, that would seem unlikely.
There is also possibility of false negatives - but I guess one has to have some trust in the system - and again very low numbers of community transmission would suggest it is extremely unlikely people are falsely testing negative - because if that were so, they would falsely be getting all clear to go to work etc - and we would see more flow on cases with no known contact cause.
Social restrictions remain in place - but not as tight as some places, including eastern states of Australia.
All incoming people , with very few exceptions, whether from overseas or interstate, must self quarnatine for 14 days.
Yep, same for NZ - so much as a sniffle and you can get tested, and that will continue as restrictions lift. People are being encouraged to contact their GP or Healthline as soon as they feel unwell, because maintaining control requires identifying and isolating any new cases plus close contacts as quickly as possible.
We had a bit of a dip in numbers being tested (Australia did too), simply because there are fewer respiratory illnesses circulating due to the restrictions in place. We haven't actually had any days where full testing capacity was reached (day before yesterday was the highest, with 5289 tests processed, only 6 came back positive).
Here, we have a category of 'probable', for where a test result has come back negative, but all clinical signs point to COVID-19. So of our 1451 total, 338 are probable cases.
Wait. Are you saying they think the testing is not catching the Covid 19 cases, or....what does this mean? I mean, the virus is sequenced..it is or it isn't - pretty cut and dry. I don't get that "probable."
Of course, "probably" a lot of not-tested infected people and a lot who had it and recovered and never got tested.
Lots of ways this can be an majorly imperfect test system because people and chaos.
1 -
Apparently there are a number of false negatives. Ross Douthat (the conservative NYT columnist) thinks he, his wife, and his son all had it, but Ross's test came back negative and his son's inconclusive, and at that point they were on the mend so did not retest. He was discussing the false negative issue on one of the episodes of his podcast (The Argument).0
-
corinasue1143 wrote: »JustSomeEm wrote: »
That is incredibly sad and very concerning. There's a lot going on here - where did this happen, and do you have a link to the article? I'd like to read it if you do.corinasue1143 wrote: »Some people are only counting people who have a positive test followed by 2 negative tests 2 weeks apart. In other words, no one has recovered yet.
On the news last night, a man with leukemia went to his usual hospital with symptoms he had before and they treated before. The hospital was full so they redirected him to another hospital, where they promptly sent him straight to the corona ward. He got worse and worse and was found dead the next morning, untreated for leukemia. Was he counted as a Corona death? He died in the corona ward. (Just an interesting aside, the hospital didn’t notify the family he died. The family is still trying to get info from the hospital, but they won’t talk to the family.)
Oops! Non-hodgens, not leukemia.
Sorry, I don’t know how to post links, but maybe you can google it from this.
Here's a link: https://kfor.com/health/coronavirus/he-did-not-deserve-to-die-like-he-did-cancer-patient-dies-in-covid-19-unit-while-family-waits-on-test/
Looks like this was a month ago, not counted as COVID. Probably not a death related to COVID either, but sad for the family.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »yes that is why I am confident we do have it under control in South Australia - and most other australian states.
Because very low number of new cases is not a reflection of less testing - in fact the opposite - as of a week ago, anyone with any flu like symptoms, no matter how mild, can be tested.
Of course there is the possibility of infected people not getting tested - but given high numbers of tests being done and very low numbers of community transmission, that would seem unlikely.
There is also possibility of false negatives - but I guess one has to have some trust in the system - and again very low numbers of community transmission would suggest it is extremely unlikely people are falsely testing negative - because if that were so, they would falsely be getting all clear to go to work etc - and we would see more flow on cases with no known contact cause.
Social restrictions remain in place - but not as tight as some places, including eastern states of Australia.
All incoming people , with very few exceptions, whether from overseas or interstate, must self quarnatine for 14 days.
Yep, same for NZ - so much as a sniffle and you can get tested, and that will continue as restrictions lift. People are being encouraged to contact their GP or Healthline as soon as they feel unwell, because maintaining control requires identifying and isolating any new cases plus close contacts as quickly as possible.
We had a bit of a dip in numbers being tested (Australia did too), simply because there are fewer respiratory illnesses circulating due to the restrictions in place. We haven't actually had any days where full testing capacity was reached (day before yesterday was the highest, with 5289 tests processed, only 6 came back positive).
Here, we have a category of 'probable', for where a test result has come back negative, but all clinical signs point to COVID-19. So of our 1451 total, 338 are probable cases.
Wait. Are you saying they think the testing is not catching the Covid 19 cases, or....what does this mean? I mean, the virus is sequenced..it is or it isn't - pretty cut and dry. I don't get that "probable."
Of course, "probably" a lot of not-tested infected people and a lot who had it and recovered and never got tested.
Lots of ways this can be an majorly imperfect test system because people and chaos.
Probables are people who are symptomatic of COVID-19, clinicians feel likely do have it (possibly due to having close contact with a confirmed case as well as being symptomatic), but for whatever reason, the test came back negative. No test is 100% reliable, and the COVID-19 nose swab test requires getting enough tissue cells on the swab. Some people likely to have it haven't been tested (eg, one of our clusters involved patients in a dementia ward, putting them through testing would have been hugely traumatic, and not changed their treatment, nor the outcome).
From our Ministry of Health case definition:
Probable case
• A case that meets the clinical criteria where other known aetiologies that fully explain the clinical
presentation have been excluded and either has laboratory suggestive evidence or for whom testing
for SARS-CoV-2 is inconclusive, or
• a close contact of a confirmed case that either meets the clinical criteria and for whom testing cannot
be performed, or
• a is a negative result but a public health risk assessment indicates they should be classified as a
probable case.
Laboratory suggestive evidence requires detection of coronavirus from a clinical specimen using pancoronavirus NAAT (PCR).
Full case definition: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/covid-19-case_definitions16april2020.pdf2 -
Apparently there are a number of false negatives. Ross Douthat (the conservative NYT columnist) thinks he, his wife, and his son all had it, but Ross's test came back negative and his son's inconclusive, and at that point they were on the mend so did not retest. He was discussing the false negative issue on one of the episodes of his podcast (The Argument).
Actual REAL false negatives or someone like Douthat insisting that he is right and the test is wrong. I mean, that's pretty arrogant.
Kind of like me insisting me and my cat had it even though we didn't get tested?
3 -
cmriverside wrote: »Apparently there are a number of false negatives. Ross Douthat (the conservative NYT columnist) thinks he, his wife, and his son all had it, but Ross's test came back negative and his son's inconclusive, and at that point they were on the mend so did not retest. He was discussing the false negative issue on one of the episodes of his podcast (The Argument).
Actual REAL false negatives or someone like Douthat insisting that he is right and the test is wrong. I mean, that's pretty arrogant.
Kind of like me insisting me and my cat had it even though we didn't get tested?
Yes, there is some evidence that there are a number of false negatives (it's not uncommon for tests). He discusses that in the podcast.
Here's one example: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/21/838794281/study-raises-questions-about-false-negatives-from-quick-covid-19-test
Another, probably more relevant to Ross's case: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/04/06/false-negative
(And I'm not convinced Ross had it, I'm just not ruling out the possibility that he did, as with the NZ gov't and their probables.)3 -
In passing, I heard some discussion of false negatives and false positives on NPR today (at least I think it was today). I wasn't listening all that closely but there was some aspect about looking at the genetic sequences, and how the sequences have similarities to other coronaviruses, so possibly some tests produce ambiguous/unconfirmed results.0
-
I didn't have a chance to look back through all the posts today but wondered if anyone highlighted the fact that here in CA (Santa Clara County) based on autopsy results of people who died at home, we had a COVID-19 death on Feb 7 and another on Feb 17 as confirmed by the CDC. The virus was here earlier than we thought apparently.
I've maintained my suspicion that my husband had COVID-19 in early February after we returned from a trip to SF from Jan 24 to 27. We flew in and out of Oakland, ate at 3 different restaurants, went wine tasting and went on an ice cream tour. About a week after we got home hubby was sick, fever, night sweats, lethargy, and a slight cough. He made an appointment at the doctor after about 6 days of being sick but woke up that morning feeling better and cancelled the appointment.
I'm not counting on the possibility that he had it, and possibly me too, even though I really didn't feel sick, but it would be nice to know. Hoping to get him the antibody test when it becomes widely available. Our daughter and 2 year old grandson (in Golden, Co) said they will be on a plane heading to CA the day after we get those results.
So many questions and so few answers!3 -
fitlulu4150 wrote: »I didn't have a chance to look back through all the posts today but wondered if anyone highlighted the fact that here in CA (Santa Clara County) bases on autopsy results of people who died at home, we had a COVID-19 death on Feb 7 and another on Feb 17 as confirmed by the CDC. The virus was here earlier than we thought apparently.
I just read a article on that. It spreading in CA by Jan seems somewhat likely at this point, and the first (2/7) death was someone who traveled a lot and worked for a company with people who traveled from Wuhan, as I understand it. So seems plausible.
The first identified case of person to person spread in Chicago (a man whose wife traveled to Wuhan) was on Jan 30, so it being earlier in CA seems quite likely to me and I'm not sure why this is being presented as surprising.
Unfortunately, the current discussion also seems to be that having it, especially a mild case, quite likely does not convey immunity.5 -
cmriverside wrote: »Apparently there are a number of false negatives. Ross Douthat (the conservative NYT columnist) thinks he, his wife, and his son all had it, but Ross's test came back negative and his son's inconclusive, and at that point they were on the mend so did not retest. He was discussing the false negative issue on one of the episodes of his podcast (The Argument).
Actual REAL false negatives or someone like Douthat insisting that he is right and the test is wrong. I mean, that's pretty arrogant.
Kind of like me insisting me and my cat had it even though we didn't get tested?
Look up specificity and sensitivity. All lab tests have a degree of error with false positives and false negatives. I don't have time to explain it at the moment, but will try to get back to this later.8 -
Unfortunately, the current discussion also seems to be that having it, especially a mild case, quite likely does not convey immunity.
Yes, that's why we're not super excited about the possibility that we may have had it already. Especially for me, since I didn't show much in the way of symptoms, other than a slight headache and a bit of a fever.
We're not counting on immunity yet, or ever, to be honest. I remember my daughter calling me from CO on March 3 (she's a scientist) telling me we had to cancel our Easter/Birthday reunion here at our house with the entire family because she predicted we would all be both exposed and probably contract it in the next several months. She's not a virologist though so who knows right? We did heed her warning though and started physical distancing early in March.
6 -
cmriverside wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »yes that is why I am confident we do have it under control in South Australia - and most other australian states.
Because very low number of new cases is not a reflection of less testing - in fact the opposite - as of a week ago, anyone with any flu like symptoms, no matter how mild, can be tested.
Of course there is the possibility of infected people not getting tested - but given high numbers of tests being done and very low numbers of community transmission, that would seem unlikely.
There is also possibility of false negatives - but I guess one has to have some trust in the system - and again very low numbers of community transmission would suggest it is extremely unlikely people are falsely testing negative - because if that were so, they would falsely be getting all clear to go to work etc - and we would see more flow on cases with no known contact cause.
Social restrictions remain in place - but not as tight as some places, including eastern states of Australia.
All incoming people , with very few exceptions, whether from overseas or interstate, must self quarnatine for 14 days.
Yep, same for NZ - so much as a sniffle and you can get tested, and that will continue as restrictions lift. People are being encouraged to contact their GP or Healthline as soon as they feel unwell, because maintaining control requires identifying and isolating any new cases plus close contacts as quickly as possible.
We had a bit of a dip in numbers being tested (Australia did too), simply because there are fewer respiratory illnesses circulating due to the restrictions in place. We haven't actually had any days where full testing capacity was reached (day before yesterday was the highest, with 5289 tests processed, only 6 came back positive).
Here, we have a category of 'probable', for where a test result has come back negative, but all clinical signs point to COVID-19. So of our 1451 total, 338 are probable cases.
Wait. Are you saying they think the testing is not catching the Covid 19 cases, or....what does this mean? I mean, the virus is sequenced..it is or it isn't - pretty cut and dry. I don't get that "probable."
Of course, "probably" a lot of not-tested infected people and a lot who had it and recovered and never got tested.
Lots of ways this can be an majorly imperfect test system because people and chaos.
All the reporting I'm seeing says that the tests for active cases deliver a lot of false negatives. Not sure about false positives.
The antibody tests (to see if you were exposed and have recovered, possibly with minimal or no symptoms) apparently have both fairly high false negatives and false positives.5 -
...I find the differences between the numbers in various places (for example, NY and CA), even places following basically the same policies for the same amount of time intriguing, although no idea what the answers are.
My understanding is that CA started the mandatory social distancing policies several days before NY. Every day makes a huge difference in slowing things down. I think another big difference is that NY has a huge population all jammed up together in close quarters with a large share of that population using mass transit. CA has a huge number of people, but they are more spread out, and public transportation isn't used by the majority.7 -
corinasue1143 wrote: »
Oops! Non-hodgens, not leukemia.
Sorry, I don’t know how to post links, but maybe you can google it from this.
Thanks - that is super sad and incredibly infuriating. Several medical professionals were negligent here. How did he go from a mild fever to intubation? And post mortem-testing showed no COVID... so what prompted them to intubate, I wonder. I hope his family gets answers.0 -
Our governor has loosened the rules a little. We can get a haircut starting tomorrow. The 3 big cities with the most cases and deaths said, nope, not for us. We will stay in lockdown a little longer. The governor and the 3 mayors talked and agreed on this before it was announced.2
-
nutmegoreo wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »Apparently there are a number of false negatives. Ross Douthat (the conservative NYT columnist) thinks he, his wife, and his son all had it, but Ross's test came back negative and his son's inconclusive, and at that point they were on the mend so did not retest. He was discussing the false negative issue on one of the episodes of his podcast (The Argument).
Actual REAL false negatives or someone like Douthat insisting that he is right and the test is wrong. I mean, that's pretty arrogant.
Kind of like me insisting me and my cat had it even though we didn't get tested?
Look up specificity and sensitivity. All lab tests have a degree of error with false positives and false negatives. I don't have time to explain it at the moment, but will try to get back to this later.
I read an article on medpage a while ago that said this particular type of testing yields about 20% false negatives. They compared it to trying to put out a forest fire when 1 out of 5 of the fires are invisible.5 -
Soooo, COVID Toes are now potentially a thing? https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/04/22/covid-toes-doctors-identify-newest-symptom-of-coronavirus/#27d158161048
Lots of really interesting potential symptoms popping up, and I think it just highlights how much we don't know.
Edited to add this article, which talks about blood clots being another potential effect of the virus. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/coronavirus-blood-clots/5 -
...I find the differences between the numbers in various places (for example, NY and CA), even places following basically the same policies for the same amount of time intriguing, although no idea what the answers are.
My understanding is that CA started the mandatory social distancing policies several days before NY. Every day makes a huge difference in slowing things down. I think another big difference is that NY has a huge population all jammed up together in close quarters with a large share of that population using mass transit. CA has a huge number of people, but they are more spread out, and public transportation isn't used by the majority.
Yes, I see those explanations, but the difference still seems huge. This article: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/21/21224944/coronavirus-hot-spots-covid-new-york-michigan-florida poses a number of reasons, including those, but it just doesn't seem entirely sufficient to me.
And based on the new possible infection rate numbers for LA County (which are pretty iffy still from what I've read), it would be less so:
"Skeptics have noted that the conclusions seem at odds with some basic math. In New York City, where more than 10,000 people, or about 0.1 percent of the population, have already died from Covid-19, this estimated fatality rate [based on the new LA numbers] would mean nearly everyone in the city has already been infected. That’s unlikely, since the number of new cases, and deaths, is still mounting, fast."
From here: https://www.wired.com/story/new-covid-19-antibody-study-results-are-in-are-they-right/
There's a new studies out of China that suggest that not only are there numerous strains of the virus, but that some of the mutations are more virulent: https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-at-least-30-different-strains-new-study-finds-625333
"The study could have future implications on the treatment of coronavirus, as several different strains have been found throughout the world. The United States, which has the world's worst death toll at 42,897, and 799,515 overall cases, has been struck by different mutations. New York, which itself had the worst death rate in the US, and the eastern coast show a strain of coronavirus similar to that found in Europe, whereas the western US has shown similarities with strains found in China."
I'm not sure I believe that (more confirmation necessary), but I do wonder.
On CA shutting down early, the Vox piece says: "The Bay Area issued the first shelter-in-place order in the US on March 16, and California issued a statewide stay-at-home order three days later — while New York didn’t impose its own mandate until March 22."
However, Chicago (and IL as a whole) imposed our shelter-in-place at the same time as CA, and yet the outbreak here seems much worse, even though it also seems likely it was spreading in CA earlier.
CA has had 35,396 positive cases, and 1354 deaths vs. 35,108 cases and 1565 deaths in IL, even though CA has 3 times the population of IL. (CA has tested more, but not if you adjust for it having more than 3x the population.)
Maybe weather is part of it (FL has had a lot of cases, but given many other factors, seems like more would have been expected), and Chicago relies more on public transportation, but it still seems odd.4
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 396.7K Introduce Yourself
- 44.2K Getting Started
- 260.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 176.3K Food and Nutrition
- 47.6K Recipes
- 232.8K Fitness and Exercise
- 450 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.7K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153.3K Motivation and Support
- 8.3K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.5K Chit-Chat
- 2.6K Fun and Games
- 4.5K MyFitnessPal Information
- 16 News and Announcements
- 18 MyFitnessPal Academy
- 1.4K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 3.1K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions